Shades of Arkham

French Hill

French Hill, surmounted vy the dark spire of Bayfriar’s Church, includes some of Arkham’s oldest homes. Still populated predominantly by Irish, brick row houses, gambrel roofs, and occasional decayed Georgian houses of impressice proportions line the hill. Some houses perch here precariously, tilting crazily over the narrow streets. Many of the lanes and alleys are no more than flights of stairs that twist upward to end at dark doorways.

The more prosperous Irish live on the east side of the hill and down across east Street in newer, more expensice homes with small front and back yards. The north slope of the hill is populated by the poorest Irish, a few Poles, and many or Arkhams’ French-Canadians. the western slope is mostly poor Irish and a few Poles.

The Polish district, an area of clustered gambrel and gable-roofed houses, is roughly the six blocks within College, Peabody, High and Garrison, on the south-west foot of the hill.